High profile dignitaries from political and business sphere﻿s paid respect to late Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray, today on his first death anniversary at the Shivaji Park grounds. Among the dignitaries were Maharashtra Governor K Sankaranarayanan, veteran BJP leader LK Advani, NCP chief and Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, who came with his daughter and Lok Sabha MP Supriya Sule, senior NCP minister Praful Patel, state PWD minister Chhagan Bhujbal, BJP leader Gopinath Munde and RPI chief Ramdas Athawale. Vinod Tawde, leader of Opposition in state Legislative Council and Rajiv Pratap Rudy a senior BJP leader were also among the persons who paid tribute to late Bal Thackeray. Among industrialists were Venugopal Dhoot of Videocon and Rahul Bajaj. The occasion was also attended by the Sena chief and son of Bal Thackeray, Uddhav Thackeray his wife Rashmi and sons Aditya and Tejas were also present. Many Shiva Sena leaders also came to pay tribute to their leader. Slogans were enchanted on the event. The place where Thackeray was criminated was decorated with flowers by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation.

17-Nov-2013Others

Do not donate anymore for Aam Aadmi Party says Arvind Kejriwal

Aam Adami Party (AAP) kept the target of collecting Rs 20 crore for the party through donations which they have achieved. On this, AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal has urged upon people not to donate further. Kejriwal tweeted that "Your party needed Rs 20 crores to fight Delhi elections. We have met that target. We don't need any more money for Delhi elections.” In another tweet he thanked all the donors for the donations. Aam Aadmi Party is ready to contest on 70 seats of Delhi assembly election. In the past few days, funding of the party was in news and several questions regarding the amount and donations were raised. Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde earlier said that an investigation regarding the source of origin of funds received by Aam Aadmi Party has been ordered by the Central Government. Advocate M L Sharma had also filed a petition and to this Delhi High Court has ordered a probe into AAP’s funding. Kejriwal said that his party has not violated any rule of Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA). Party has not accepted funds from foreign nationals. Funds only from NRI’s who have Indian passport have been received as this has been permitted under RP Act. But the probe is still going on.

17-Nov-2013Science and Technology

New Yoga Tablet by Lenovo

Yoga Tablets by Lenovo has been launched today. Its two models viz the 20.3 cm and 25.4 cm have been priced at Rs 22,999 to Rs 28,999, respectively. It has been so designed that user get more comfortable and for longer tablet experience. Lenovo India Director (Consumer Business) Shailendra Katyal told that it is expected that they will have three percent market share in the tablet market in the last quarter. Within a short span of 2-3 months they have moved to 14.3%. Investment in promotion and creating the retail presence is the major factor causing the required growth. Our ambition is to increase the market share with the launch of new products. Now they are waiting for the public response. He also said that consumer space is coming out as a large market as compared to enterprise space. 2-3 years back, in consumer PC market they had about 8-10% market share and last year it was 13%. As per IDC report the market share this year has gone up to 17% and they have been given number two position. They are working really hard in their core business that is PC business in the consumer space. Last year number of odd store was 1,000 which is now close to 1,450.

17-Nov-2013Business

Gold import may fall by 40% to 500 tonnes in Financial Year 2014

Bit of relief will be provided by the expected fall in gold import in the current financial year. More likely the gold import will reduce by 40% to 500 tonnes thereby providing relief to the government who is working hard to reduce the gap between the current account deficit in order to stabilize rupee. According to a revenue officer, measures to control gold demand have been taken by the government as well as the Reserve Bank. This can be seen in the results - till October, about 400 tonnes of gold has been imported. Revenue officer also said that another 100 tonnes is expected to be imported in the five months through March 2014 making the total of 500 tonnes. In 2012-13 total estimated gold import to India was 835 tonnes that led to the current account deficit (CAD) of USD 88.2 billion, or 4.8 per cent of GDP. More inflow of foreign exchange than outflow was one of the major reasons leading to the depreciation of rupee that touched all time low of 68.85 against the dollar in late August. But it gained a bit after the revised policies from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). To control the demand of gold, import duty on gold was raised by the government to 10% and many conditions were imposed on the import of the gold. Reserve Bank Governor Raghuram Rajan said that there are chances that India’s CAD will be less than USD 56 billion. He further said that gold import in 2011-12 rose to 1,067 tonnes from 970 tonnes in the last financial year.

17-Nov-2013Sports

ICC ranking for players – Tendulkar at 18th position

Sachin Tendulkar’s career came to an end after playing his 200-Test cricket and he has been ranked at 18th position as per the ICC Player Rankings for Test batsmen. He jumped five places in the recent chart that has been released on Sunday. When the series got started his position was 24th, the lowest since 1992. In his final innings he made 74 runs against West Indies. In this batting chart the highest position is bagged by Cheteshwar Pujara. He moved up two places. Another batsmen who move up are Virat Kohli in 21st (up by four), Murali Vijay in 42nd (up by two), Kieran Powell in 53rd (up by four) and Rohit Sharma in 58th (up by five). AB de Villiers of South Africa is at the top of the chart, Hashim Amla at second position and Shivnarine Chanderpaul from West Indies at third place. Ravichandran Ashwin (at five) and Pragyan Ojha, both the bowlers of Indian Cricket Team are in top 10 (up by four). Shane Shillingford, West Indies spinner is at 16th place and Dale Steyn from South Africa is still at the top in the bowlers’ table. Vernon Philander is at second position whereas Rangana Herath from Sri Lanka at third.

17-Nov-2013Entertainment

Waheeda Rehman will receive first Centenary Film Award at IIFI

Veteran actress Waheeda Rehman will be honoured with the introductory Centenary Award for the Indian Film Personality of the Year. It is the special honour to remember the 100 years of Indian cinema. The award has been set by the information and broadcasting ministry. Actress will receive the award at the 44th International Film Festival of India (IFFI) that is going to start in Goa on 20th November. Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari has shared this news on his twitter account and congratulated the actress. He tweeted "Congratulations to Waheeda Rehmanji for being conferred the inaugural Centenary Award for the Indian Film Personality of the Year-2013.” Waheeda Rehman’s filmy career started in 1955 with a Telugu film 'Jayasimha' and then after a year she made appearance in Hindi film with ‘C.I.D.’. She acted in near about 70 films in her career of five decades. 'Man Mandir', 'Kaagaz Ke Phool', 'Teesri Kasam', ‘Guide’ are few of her popular movies. In 1972 the actress received Padma Shri and in 2011 she was also honoured with Padma Bhushan.